TELEGRAM TO CHIEFS OF REQUISITIONING DETACHMENTS ON ALL RAILWAYS[1]

Written:Written on July 1, 1918Published:First published in 1931 inLenin Miscellany XVIII.

      Printed from the typewritten original corrected, amended and signed by V. I. Lenin.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      page339.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

TheCouncil of People’s Commissars has been informed
of quite intolerable behaviour, damaging to Soviet power,
by some requisitioning detachments. The detachments have
been sent for responsible service on the railways, for the
struggle against actual profiteering. Chiefs of detachments
are instructed to maintain the most stringent discipline in
their detachments, for the absence of which, as for all offences
by the detachments, the chiefs will be held to strict account
before the merciless judgement of the Revolutionary
Tribunal. Detachments should be informed that the Council of
People’s Commissars is convinced that class-conscious
workers will not tolerate any breach of the strictest proletarian
discipline, and will treat with the greatest severity those
who by their behaviour are disgracing Soviet power. But if
obvious hooligans have found their way into the detachments,
and refuse to obey the instructions of the central authorities
and their chiefs, or disgrace the Soviet Republic by taking
bribes from grain speculators, they must be immediately
arrested by their chiefs and the local Soviets of Deputies,
and delivered under guard to Moscow for committal to most
severe judgement by the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Ulyanov(Lenin)Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars

[1]Thistelegram followed a discussion by the Council of People’s
Commissars on July 1, 1918 concerning a report from V. I. Nevsky,
People’s Commissar for Railways, about protests received from
railwaymen over the illegal activities of certain requisitioning
detachments. Lenin drafted the telegram and submitted it to the
meeting. A typewritten copy with corrections and amendments in
Lenin’s hand has been preserved.